R&D&I cooperation with third countries

Let us discuss R&D&I cooperation with third countries – strategies and possible opportunities.

As the global interlocutors of the EU know very well, the EU (as opposed to the member states) will not become a significant factor in science and cooperation policy due to the field remaining a national competence.⁽¹⁾

Furthermore, you can sign all the memorandums of understanding you like but without budgets to take programs forward, these documents seem mainly a symbolic science and cooperation policy.

With these ideas in mind, let us start with the recommendation on China (ERAC 1204/21, dated 5 Nov 2021). From what we can judge, the authors of the document were liberally mixing science policy with geopolitical matters (another singularity of the geopolitical EU, although perhaps best to avoid such a stark framing here).

The desired landing zone of the science policy was unclear. I found the agenda difficult to understand because rhetoric sometimes alluded to a dispensation that is not real.

China-CEEC activities in the scientific field, such as the innovation cooperation research center reported in Ningbo, are an illustration of that point. Obviously, there are also plenty of other bilateral platforms between science ministries.

Reported innovation initiatives by Chinese firms in the EU

Firm	Initiative
CATL	factory and R&D center† in Germany
China Railway	train line between Hungary and Serbia††
COSCO	upgrade to ports in Belgium, Greece and Spain
Elion	innovation center for green entrepreneurs in the Netherlands
Hanergy	contribution to green environment in Germany and the Netherlands
Huawei	upgrade to Deutsche Bahn communications infrastructure

Not to mention, in general, the vast multi-directional information flow in the science and research sector, as well as many commercial R&D initiatives some of which may be more or less beneficial to citizens (it is impossible to know much about the latter because neither European nor Chinese firms tend to advertise the details of their R&D).

I do not know if ERAC 1204/21 is now considered outdated. But the main risk with some of the approach as described was that we would see, almost accidentally, the EU taking positions that not only discourage top-down scientific cooperation with China but also start to damage bottom-up initiatives as well and, given the lack of overall clarity, not for much gain.

When member states, or for that matter, the rest of the world, take a warmer tone in their science and technology policy, what is the north wind to do?

The EU aims to ‘upgrade its knowledge on contemporary China’ and ‘secure long term and independent expertise on contemporary China’. A strategy that would pay dividends whatever the geopolitical weather. But the epistemic process chosen appears, as far as we can tell, to be one that treats China as an inanimate object like a galaxy.

Noting, for example, the speaker and topic line-up of the EU-KNOC conference (Sep 2021) organized by DG R&I, Chinese science policy knowledge is not obviously present (as much as it is possible to know, based on the limited information provided).

Yet, Chinese experts obviously generate a lot of useful, specific, analysis about Chinese science policy which is available in literature databases. Publications by analysts at institutions such as the National Academy of Innovation Strategy (NAIS) in Beijing, as an example, suggest China and Europe are grappling with many similar policy issues.

It would be good, therefore, to see the Commission build its capacity to take Chinese science and expertise seriously. By this I mean, an epistemic process that includes Chinese knowledge. Hopefully, this is now occurring, and my initial impression of EU-KNOC was misleading given that all the data points come from last year.

I would like to see some transversal science policy themes in any eventual cooperation mix (in the event that Commission DG R&I and MOST cooperate intensively with one another on science policy projects).

These could include historical evolution of science and innovation policy and what it means for strategy today; gender balance in science; and regional development by means of science and innovation instruments. Such themes would offer an unique form of mutual learning for both ends of the Eurasian land mass.

EU activities such as the aforementioned EU-KNOC will not have escaped the notice of Chinese science policy analysts who follow EU policy. EU policy might, though, be seen as an element of the policy of the only member state that matters in science and technology, Germany.

Given the significant role of the UK in shaping European science policy over many decades, Brexit is evidently an intellectual caesura in the conduct of that policy. I will mention a few possible impacts on science and cooperation policy (I do not mean in terms of relations with the UK).

Is there a new need, as an example, for the EU to challenge the probable Americaphilia and Anglo-centrism of the Indian scientific community?⁽⁸⁾

Data reported in Dua, et al., 2022, ‘Measuring and characterizing international collaboration patterns in Indian scientific research’ (analysis of publications 2011-2020) indicated by my calculation that more than 50% of Indian collaborative publications were with Anglophone countries (whereas, about 30% were with EU member states).

I do not know if this data point matters. But it would be a legitimate strategy to become the dominant international collaborator in scientific publications in countries such as India (as an indicator of information exchange).

Based on a quick glance at the H2020 projects dashboard, joint activities amounted to only about €4m of EU investment and have not systematically engaged the most prestigious Indian scientific institutions or, necessarily, the most obvious scientific topics. The budget is roughly on par with the sums expended with most of the other major Asian economies (excepting Australia).

EU science and technology interactions with major Asian economies (examples)

Country*	Net EU contribution under H2020†	Proposed forward action(s)††	Last publicised bilateral contact between DG R&I and cognate science ministry¶
Australia	€12.12m	Enhance cooperation including by exploring new possibilities for closer cooperation such as association under Horizon Europe	Jul 2019
Japan	€5.71m	same as Australia	May 2022
China	€4.94m	Launched discussions on a joint roadmap to establish agreed framework conditions and guiding principles for cooperation	May 2022
India	€4.09m	Strengthen cooperation in multilateral fora	May 2021
South Korea	€2.44m	same as Australia	Feb 2022
Indonesia	€2.28m	Considering EU-ASEAN approach covering science, research, technology and innovation	no data

The EU is inevitably somewhat invisible in Indian science policy. We see thin soup in the policy documents, i.e., no concrete proposals for new collaborations have so far been made. The budget envelope seems limited.

While the European Parliament has a standing delegation for relations with the Lok Sabha, the Indian side apparently does not reciprocate (note the EP delegation is not specifically concerned with science but covers all topics).

Have the obvious remedies been tried to the fullest extent? I do not know. CORDIS contains promising pilot projects in the past decade, such as the India-EU Joint House for Innovation, but that appears not to have been picked up on a larger scale.

European governments maintain scientific footprints of various kinds in India. Germany, for example, counts DWIH, IGST and Max Weber in New Delhi and Fraunhofer and Max Planck in Bengaluru, among official entities such as diplomatic posts. Germany also has a very strong collaborative publication profile in India, second only to the USA, and indeed above England, citing Dua, et al.

This indicates that lack of visibility would be an EU issue, not a member state issue as such. It is, in my view, valuable to make this distinction in science and cooperation policy, which, as already noted, remains primarily a national competence.

Otherwise, we are mixing up conventional bilateral ties with member states, notably, Germany, instigated by German officials, and which an Indian interlocutor might recognize as fundamentally German in character, as against ties in which the interlocutor sees the relationship as primarily one with the EU.

Turning, now, south to our shared longitudes. It has been observed for decades that Western science for development policies in Africa have been chaotic and illogical.⁽²⁾ Science and technology has often been identified as a key thread in colonial and, later, its offshoot, development, policy, which is germane to that observation.⁽³⁾

Through Brexit the EU detached from one of the former colonial powers (and one with a particularly bad track record). The UK also had a substantial science and technology policy in relation to development that was certainly never disinterested.

The shaping of development policy to British liking has therefore to be considered a factor at the European level and, long after Brexit, its intellectual effects will probably still be felt in policy formulation.

Around the time of British accession to the European Communities, for example, the UK international development minister, Hart, broadened the geographical reach of European development policy to include Commonwealth countries (apparently, it had previously been defined by Françafrique).⁽⁴⁾

Obviously, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal (more recent) and Germany (less recent) remain member states with their own awful colonial pasts on the African continent. However, the newer EU member states have no overseas colonial legacies, although there is history from the old days of comrades, some of it quite significant.⁽⁵⁾

I am not sure that more science policy dialogues are needed. The issues are known. An EU policy that actually supported science and innovation strategy propounded by African governments would be an unique step forward.

A policy of this kind would, however, require an unprecedented intellectual effort on the part of the EU. Regrettably, there is not much space for such ideas to develop and so it seems unlikely other than piecemeal.

(1) Science and cooperation policy is a national prerogative, thereby hampering the development of new kinds of EU thinking, and this seems unlikely to change, citing point 16 of ERAC 1203/21: ‘the bulk of international cooperation activities is designed and implemented by the members states and associated countries, which also needs to be reflected’. Prange-Gstöhl, 2019, ‘The EU’s approach to Transatlantic science and research relations: between “laissez faire” and “science diplomacy”‘ in: European Foreign Affairs Review, provides insightful discussion on this point in regard to the USA.

(2) A pithy summary of the issue, written more than 30 years ago, is provided by Kipré, 1986, ‘Science, technique et developpement en Afrique Noire’, in: Décolonisations et nouvelles dépendances: Modèles et contre-modèles idéologiques et culturels dans le Tiers-Monde, p. 269.

Notes 3-5 are a holding point for potentially useful information.

(3) I very gradually try to assemble a reading list. Anker, 2001, Imperial Ecology; Bocking-Welch, 2020, British civic society at the end of empire: Decolonisation, globalisation, and international responsibility; Bonneuil, 2000, Development as Experiment: Science and State Building in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, 1930-1970, in: Osiris; Bonneuil, 1991, Des savants pour l’empire : la structuration des recherches scientifiques coloniales au temps de “la mise en valeur des colonies françaises” 1917-1945; Bonneuil and Petitjean, 1997, Science and French Colonial Policy. Creation of the ORSTOM: From the Popular Front to the Liberaton via Vichy; Bose and Burnell, 1991, Britain’s Overseas Aid Since 1979: Between Idealism and Self-interest; Castelo, 2012, Investigação científica e política colonial portuguesa: evolução e articulações, 1936-1974, in: História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos; Clarke, 2018, Science at the End of Empire: Experts and the Development of the British Caribbean, 1940-62; Clarke, 2006, Experts, Empire and development: fundamental research for the British Colonies, 1940-1960; Clarke, 2005, Experts, Empire and Development; Frisch, 2008, The European Union’s development policy: A personal view of 50 years of international cooperation; Morgan-Hodge, 2007, Triumph of the Expert; Tilley, 2011, Africa as a Living Laboratory; Seddon, 2005, British and Japanese overseas aid compared, in: Japan’s Foreign Aid: Old Continuities and New Directions; Worboys, 1981, Science and British colonial imperialism, 1895-1940.

(4) Hewitt and Whiteman, 2018, The Commission and development policy, in: EU Development Policy. Also informative are Kent, 1992, Internationalization of Colonialism: Britain, France, and Black Africa 1939-1956; and Hanson and Jonsson, 2014, Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism. The Middle East Supply Centre (MESC) is the signal historical illustration of sophistication of British science and technology policy in this field (citing, among other sources, Mejcher, 2017, Der Nahe Osten im Zweiten Weltkrieg; and Heydemann, 2000, War, Institutions, and Social Change in the Middle East).

(5) Muehlenbeck, 2015, Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945-1968; Schwenkel, 2014, Traveling Architecture. East German Urban Designs in Vietnam; Slobodian, 2015, Comrades of Colour: East Germany in the Cold War World